There is a highlight video at the end of this blog you probably don’t want to miss. But we don’t give a poop if you watch it or not.

I previously blogged about trying to discover my inner “Selfish Sarah” since there isn’t much time for myself as a working/stay-at-home mom of three little kids. Most of my time is spent serving others (which I love) but sometimes I dream of escaping the ongoing demands and pampering myself. I already hired a Glam Squad to give me a Mommy Makeover. Now I would like for a prince to come sweep me off my feet and treat me like a princess for a day. It just so happens that such an opportunity arose. It involves potty training and me dressing up like Elsa from Disney’s Frozen to be paraded around the mall by none other than Superman himself. What ever you do, don’t stop reading now. It’s about to get real interesting. Here’s how it all unfolded…

Once upon a time, there was a very special man in my life who was working harder than ever to achieve the greatest milestone in his life. He had to push himself to the limits. After years of work he was able to flush out the fears that plagued him since childhood to become a new person; the kind of guy I always knew he could be. Now most of you probably assume I am talking about my husband, John. You might also assume I’m talking about his dream of writing a book, doing mission work in a third world country or creating a more advanced prosthetic for amputees. Well, you’re wrong. Who I’m really taking about my #2 man, my son, Austin and his four year journey to achieve potty training proficiency.

This life-altering odyssey has been YEARS in the making. Austin finally decided to make an honest attempt to take care of his business. But every time he sat on the royal throne he would become FROZEN. Although I couldn’t always smell change in the air,I have stood by his side since the beginning of this torturous journey. There were countless times when my potty mouth wanted to consume me. But I didn’t let these dirty words get the best of me. Instead, I would cry out to Austin, “LET IT GO, let it go, don’t hold it back anymore!” I offered all sorts of bribery to help encourage him to move closer to wiping away all the obstacles blocking him from his doody. His head just seemed backed up with fear. NOTHING was working!

Then one day the blockage gave way. Austin looked up at me with his big blue eyes while sitting on his porcelain La-Z-Boy and said, “Mommy, when I am potty trained I want you to dress up like Elsa and I want to go on a date with you to the mall. Also, I want to dress up like Superman so I can keep you safe.” Ah HA! Finally, I had bribery that would work! I had been so desperate to find some sort of motivation that I reached a point where I would do anything for TRUE LOVE potty training mastery.

The day had finally arrived when my Superman-Charming was ready to sweep me off my feet. I anxiously transformed from the rarely-appreciated, under-rested and over-stressed mom that I am into a real life Elsa. My chariot, I mean Buick SUV, sat ready to gallantly transport us from our house in the suburbs to the most magical place little Austin’s mind could imagine – the Cool Springs Galleria Mall. I wasn’t quite done morphing into a princess but when you gotta go, you gotta go! So we loaded up the carriage to head to our royally planned event.

The chariot wasn’t quite what I expected. It wasn’t the sparkling white horse-drawn carriage I had envisioned in my dreams since I was little girl. It wasn’t encrusted with priceless jewels or encircled with fairy dust. Instead, it had a pungent mysterious smelling odor that royally stunk. The unforgettable decor included carpet that was shellacked with fish of gold (a.k.a. Goldfish) and fingerprint art smudged all over the windows. These are details I hadn’t noticed in the Disney movies before but it was all coming to life in my own personal mommy tale.

When we arrived at the ball, I mean mall, I was escorted by my Superman-Charming, through the food court entrance. It was such an honor to hold his hand as we headed to our first stop, the mall playground.

Austin took me for a thrill ride on his reindeer, Sven, and his police motorcycle. I have to say I had never been more scared. I almost pooped my pants! Thank goodness for Superman’s bulging muscles to comfort me.

Then we headed over to Payless, because that’s where Cinderella supposedly gets her shoes, to see if the glass slipper fit. Sure enough it did! I knew in that moment that Austin was my knight in shining armor a Superman muscle max costume.As we continued gliding through the mall we came upon something that caught our attention! It was me. So we had to stop and take a picture. I don’t remember posing with Anna but I am guessing it was back in the day when I used to bleach my hair with a bunch of Sun-In and before I had three kids because my waist is oddly small in this poster compared to the size of my head.

Next we danced into Hallmark where Superman Austin got down on one knee and asked if I would accept his chocolate rose. Being The Bachelor fan that I am, I gladly accepted the rose. I just told him that I get to pick what we do on our next date.

While at Hallmark, I found a book about myself that I just couldn’t put down. I kept reading hoping that I would get to the point in the story line where I meet my prince charming, but I knew I wouldn’t find that out til Chapter 3, thanks to my friend Belle from Beauty and the Beast. We didn’t have enough time for me to read that much because we were getting hungry. We raced to the food court and got the runs hoping to get there faster.

On our way to our fine dining experience, we made a quick stop at Build-A-Bear so I could get Austin a little gift from Elsa. Lately, we have continuously seen the Build-A-Bear commercial that shows bears repeatedly saying, “I love you, I love you” and I thought that would be the perfect gift to put into his best friend, Super Bear. While we were there, I noticed that they even had an Elsa bear!

We treated ourselves to a fancy Italian dish from Sbarros Pizza. My heart was melting as we sat upon our stools slurping spaghetti noodles from the same bowl and gazing into each others eyes like in Lady and the Tramp. So romantic!

Our date wrapped up with a trip to his workplace so he could take care of some lingering business before our carriage came to pick us up and get us home before midnight.

I am so proud of my royal hiney and I had such a great time with him. My greatest hope is that he doesn’t ever dump me.

The moral of this twisted tale that can only come from the minds of the Mabry’s is simple…

Don’t give a poop what other people think!

So many people’s lives are consumed with stress and anxiety about what other people think of them. We work jobs we hate to make enough money to vainly buy houses/cars/clothes we really can’t afford to impress people we don’t like. It is sickening to me to watch so many people stressing themselves to the max just so they can look good to everyone else, when deep down they don’t even like themselves. If each individual spent more time focusing on themselves instead of everyone else, the world would be a much happier place.

Here is the highlight video you probably don’t want to miss. But we don’t give a poop if you watch it or not.

Baby Sawyer woke up with a runny nose and was whiny, the boys didn’t like anything I offered to make them for breakfast, the darn cat (that I am not a fan of) insisted on being let out of the house just to come right back inside and one of the dogs was dry heaving right beside as he followed me around ALL DAY LONG! All the while I was walking around the house like a washed up frumpy old maid wearing reindeer pajamas with a messy pony tail on top of my head balancing Sawyer (aka Soybean) on my hip while she wiped her snot on my sleeve. Most of our mornings these days aren’t too different but this one definitely stood out. It was the last day of Christmas break and I think we were all VERY ready to get back to our normal schedule.

The day continued to be very demanding and often times frustrating. All I wanted to do was get out of my reindeer pj’s, brush my hair, and brush my teeth. Was I being unrealistic? I didn’t think so. “Soybean” had decided that she didn’t want to nap and she didn’t want to sit on the ground or the high chair or the jumper or the walker, or anywhere else I tried setting her. She was only happy if she was in the baby Bjorn carrier strapped to my chest. Having a baby attached to me made it hard to feel productive and I found myself feeling constantly annoyed and frustrated. That is until I would look down and see the sweetest little blue eyes and big gummy smile staring up at me. That smile sure helped me shift my mindset of negativity and put an immediate smile across my face.

The day continued as earlier with the dry heaving dog leaving piles of spit up randomly placed throughout the house. The dry heaving sound is like nails on a chalkboard for me and I couldn’t get away from it because Cubbie follows me EVERYWHERE! We call it the most annoying sound in the world. Between the heaving and the whiny baby I couldn’t help but watch the clock tick away with each minute getting closer to the kids’ bedtime…and my free time! “The Bachelor” season premier was going to be on and I couldn’t help but dream of being engulfed in the warm couch and watching one of MY shows…not the kids’ cartoons or John’s sports.

John and I got all three kids in their beds by 7:30 pm and I made my way out to the nice cozy green couch and plopped down to watch my show. I had to go to the DVR to find my recording since I was already 30 minutes late. I found it and pushed play. Ahhhhhh. Deep breath.

Not two minutes into the show Austin comes out to tell me that Larson was bleeding. Larson came shuffling in right behind Austin and had a wad of bloody Kleenex shoved in his mouth. In my mind I was thinking “Are you kidding me?!? What could have happened in in two minutes while he was laying in his bed reading books that would make him look like he had just gotten into a fight?”

Through his tears Larson mumbled that his top front tooth was about to fall out. This softened my selfish outlook. John and I got him settled in our bed and I let john take a look at the tooth since it gives me the heeby geebies looking at it dangling from a thread. John said that Larson is not allowed to go to bed without getting that tooth out first. Of course, I was still selfishly thinking. “Oh great, here goes my Bachelor night.”

I tried to sneak out of the bedroom and back to my show. I pushed play and made it all the way to minute 7 before Larson came out and told us he had lost the tooth. I hit pause on the remote and look up to see Larson with the biggest proudest gap-filled smile. His gleaming smile made me smile and my heart shine.

I told him to go get his tooth so we could put it in the special Tooth Fairy pillow we have. A few minutes later I found him frantically searching the chair in our bedroom where he was laying earlier. He said he literally lost the tooth. So he wrote the Tooth Fairy a note at 9:30 pm explaining what happened (see picture below). We set the note by the pillow and he finally drifted off to sleep.

I was able to finish watching my entire show after a long day. Even though it was a redundant day of annoying noises and feelings of being unproductive, I am thankful that my kiddos have the ability to still put a smile on my face, even through the chaos. Once my show was over it was time for me to drift off to sleep with a heart of gratitude.

Luckily, the next day we found the tooth wedged in the filthy carpet near the chair where Larson was laying. After finding it Larson innocently wrote a second note asking the Tooth Fairy for another dollar. Smart kid. It doesn’t hurt to ask, right?

Here are the sweet notes Larson wrote with the Tooth Fairy’s responses on them.

I hope this made you smile today. Remember that smiles are contagious, but so is negativity and a poor attitude. Now go out and smile at everyone you see the rest of the day because you never know what chaos someone else might be going through.